The history of the Castle and the Giudicati

The first attestation of the existence of four Judges of equal rank in Sardinia comes from a letter written in Capua on 14 October 1073 by Gregory VII to the Sardinian Judges Orzocco Torchitorio of Cagliari, Orzocco of Arborea, Mariano of Torres and Costantino of Gallura. In it, the Pope orders the Sardinian Judges to submit to his will, to respect Catholic orthodoxy, and invites them, together with their peoples, to return to the Church of Rome through the introduction of his reform.

The four Giudicati kingdoms — Torres or Logudoro, Gallura, Arborea, and Càlari or Pluminos — formed and developed between the 7th century and the early decades of the 11th century, during a period marked by the progressive crisis of the imperial organisation established by Justinian in the central Mediterranean. This crisis created a power vacuum that exposed Sardinia to political and military instability and to the danger posed by Arab raids. During the Byzantine conquest of 534, under Emperor Justinian, Sardinia became the seventh province of the Prefecture of Africa.

Administrative government and public order were entrusted to a governor (praeses) based in Cagliari. Military command was entrusted to a duke (dux), based in Forum Traiani (present-day Fordongianus), who answered directly to the exarch, the military commander of Africa. The dux was responsible for the defence of the whole island through a system of garrisons and fortified structures (castra) located mainly in the most exposed centres — Cagliari, Sulci, Olbia and Tharros — where the limitanei, permanent border troops often recruited from among those who owned land in critical areas, were stationed, alongside the comitatenses, the mobile field troops.

In addition, just like the praeses, the dux was supported by a complex, hierarchical system of officials with administrative and logistical responsibilities.

In times of particular danger, a single officer took command of the island's defences; over the course of the 8th century this figure gained increasing power and came to be known, more and more frequently, as iudex provinciae, whose main task was tax collection. This figure most likely amassed considerable landed wealth, which allowed him to exercise a lasting personal authority and to fill the vacuum left by the end of the exarchate of Africa. Over time, the defence of coastal areas was increasingly entrusted to the limitanei troops, and this direct involvement in defence brought about, for this social class, a rapid rise in power in terms of both prestige and political importance.

New titles took hold on the island, such as iudex (rendered locally as Judike) or àrchon, generally given to those holding command or jurisdictional authority over various districts. According to Francesco Cesare Casula, it was probably around the 10th century that it became necessary to organise a network for controlling the more distant territories, dividing the province into partes or merèrie, whose administration was entrusted to officials called lociservatores (keepers of the place), responsible for the administration of justice, the organisation of defence, and the collection of taxes. These officials would gradually become independent from the government of Cagliari (whether this happened peacefully or violently is not known), marking the birth of a new, autonomous form of government based on a «declaration of sovereignty before God and the people». According to Casula, this act would have transformed all instruments of government (seals, formularies, etc.) from subordinate to absolute. The lociservatores thus assumed the title of iudex, meaning sovereign.

At the head of the Logu (kingdom) was the Judge (Judike), elected by the Corona de Logu (su Collettu), an assembly made up of a representative from each curadorìa, members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy (pìscamos), the castellans, and two local representatives elected by juradores delegated by the Corona de curadorìa.

Unlike contemporary continental states, the Giudicati were not hereditary possessions and depended on the will of the people, who, through their procuratores, granted the judge power (bannus) and consent (consensus) to submit to him in exchange for respect for their own prerogatives.

Among the highest-ranking officials alongside the Judge were an Armentariu de pegugiare, who managed the Judge's private estate, and an Armentariu de Rennu, responsible for administering the assets of the Logu.

The Judge was also assisted by a chancery known as the Camera Scribaniae. Official documents, called carta bullata, were drafted by the state Chancellor — generally a bishop or a senior clergyman — assisted by other officials known as majores, the most important of whom was the Majore de camera.

The Giudicati were divided into curadorìas, administrative and judicial subdivisions subject to two types of tax: su datu, levied directly on subjects' assets "secundu sa forza issoro" (according to their means), and sa collectura or colta, paid in money, produce or livestock. At the head of each curadorìa were the curadores, appointed by the Judge and holding fiscal and judicial authority, drawn from the ranks of the majorales or lieros mannos, which included the Judge and his family (donnikelos and donnikelas), landowners and members of the clergy. The curadore was responsible, among other things, for governing the territorial district, administering justice, overseeing the proper collection of taxes, and organising the personal services owed to the Judge by the inhabitants of the individual villas (villages). In judicial matters he assisted the Corona de Judike and represented, locally, the highest judicial authority, exercising ordinary jurisdiction by residing in the chief town of the curadorìa or travelling to the villas under its jurisdiction, and judged — assisted by the boni homines — all civil and criminal cases through his court, known as the Corona de curadore.

He also regulated armed service, both for the guarding of the villas — the so-called Scolca — and for the military service owed to the Logu in time of war.

At the head of each village was a Majore de bidda, appointed by the curadore, responsible for the security of the territory entrusted to him, for common lands (ademprivi), for woodlands, and for overseeing livestock and enclosed lands.

In judicial matters he pursued minor offences, presiding over his own court known as the Corona de Majore, made up of the village's majores. In carrying out his duties he was supported by a group of sworn guards known as juratos, who, after taking an oath, were required to seek out, report and arrest those responsible for crimes against personal safety and property.

On the military side, the defence of the Judge and his family was guaranteed by a guard corps called the Kita de buiakesos, commanded by a Majore de buiakesos (or Majore de janna), supported by a group of lower-ranking figures. The most important weapon, alongside chainmail, sword, shield and nasal helmet, was the fearsome birrudu, a weapon with a curved blade and, at its other end, a heavy metal point capable of piercing armour and shields. Other characteristic weapons included the leppa, a sabre with a bone handle and curved blade, bows, the crossbow, and the virga sardesca, a heavy javelin used chiefly in hand-to-hand combat.

The villas organised themselves through the aforementioned Scolca, a guard corps formed by agreement among the village's inhabitants, tasked with defending cultivated land or the habitacione area, which included the cuniatos, the ortos and the terre de agrile. Every March, all village inhabitants who had turned 14 but not yet 70 took an oath known as the Jura de Scolca, promising not to cause harm to persons, goods or property, and to report anyone who committed such offences.

At the head of the Scolca was the Majore de Scolca, supported by juratos and minor officials such as the Pradargios and the Majores de gulvare. There were also the Kitas de saltu and de Pratu with their own majores, responsible for guarding the saltos (rugged terrain) and common pastures, and the majores de gulvares or de mandras, who oversaw the enclosed communal lands.

Among the earliest documentary attestations relating to Posada, particular importance attaches to the Confirmatio beneficiorum issued by Urban II in 1095, a papal bull in which the Pontiff confirmed to the Monks of Saint-Victor of Marseille the properties they held outside France, including the «ecclesiam sancti Stephani de Pausada cum ceteris ecclesiis».

Its strategic position, the presence of the river, and the fertility of the land made Posada one of the most important centres of the Giudicato of Gallura, both from a political-administrative standpoint, as the chief town of the curadorìa of the same name within the Gallura kingdom, and from a purely economic one, as a lively crossroads of trade.

The villa of Posada lay along the Tibula-Karalis road, which set out from Santa Teresa di Gallura, reached Olbia, continued as far as Coclearia (present-day San Teodoro), passed through Budoni, Tanaunella and Posada, and continued southward to the present-day territories of the Baronia of Orosei and Ogliastra, as far as Cagliari.

In the territory of Posada, near what is now the Santa Caterina district, the road forked, creating a diverticulum linking Portus Luguidonis (whose exact location remains uncertain) with the territories around Bitti (where Roman garrisons were present) and those of Goceano and Monteacuto. The Posada area represented the only crossing point between the inland territories and the sea, via the "Caricatoio del Castello della Fava" (the loading point of the Castello della Fava) or "Porto di Posada", serving both the local area and goods coming from inland.

As recorded in the Liber Fondachi, a Pisan register of assets compiled between 1317 and 1319, the ancient villa of Posada stood at the foot of Monte 'Idda, referred to in medieval documents as «Monte ville de Posata», in what is now the Santa Caterina district. The same document distinguishes between the areas «iusta roccham castri» — that is, on the hill where the castle and the borgo stand — and those in the «villa de Posata», where the churches of Santa Caterina, Spirito Santo, Santo Stefano and Santa Vittoria stood.

The Liber Fondachi records that the villa of Posada had 75 "hearths" (375 inhabitants) and 104 taxpayers, and paid the Commune of Pisa 60 lire in land tax, along with 40 quarras of wheat and 70 of barley.

The villa's economy was based mainly on cereal farming, viticulture, animal husbandry, and fishing and hunting resources, as well as the salt trade (a customs house was in fact present). The Pisan register also records the presence of a Curia regni (Royal Court) surrounded by walls, confirming that the villa of Posada was a centre of political, institutional and administrative importance.

In accordance with the secret agreements of Anagni of 20 June 1295, which ended the War of the Sicilian Vespers between the Angevins and the Aragonese over control of Sicily, on 4 April 1297 Pope Boniface VIII established the hypothetical Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae, granting it as a fief to James II of Aragon, who — named "standard-bearer, captain and admiral general of the Church and perpetual lord of the two islands" — took the title of King of Sardinia and Corsica.

Military operations began in June 1323, with the landing in the Gulf of Palmas, in the Sulcis area, of a powerful army commanded by the Infante Alfonso, and ended in June 1326.

The following year a peace treaty was signed, ratified in Pisa on 3 August of the same year, which established the transfer, in favour of certain officials, of «[...] castra et fortalicia de Aquafrigida, de Terranova, de Quirra, de Fava sive Possata, de Guaycelli et de Villa Potresse et omnia alia fortalicia que hodie tenentur in dicta insula Sardinie per Comune Pise», marking the end of Pisan supremacy in Sardinia and the resulting birth of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica.

With the outbreak of the Sardinian-Catalan War, begun by Mariano IV in 1349 with the siege of Bosa and lasting, with brief interruptions, until 1420, the Posada area became one of the battlegrounds in the conflict between the Giudicato of Arborea and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The castles of the by-then fallen Giudicato of Gallura, including the Castello della Fava, played an important strategic role as a military stronghold for the Arborean forces in the north-eastern part of the island.

In 1382 La Fava returned to Arborean hands, but on 24 January 1388 the Juighissa (Judge) Eleonora d'Arborea was forced to sign a peace agreement with John I, under which she returned the castle, the towns, the villas and the royal lands occupied by the previous Judges of Arborea, in exchange for the release of her husband Brancaleone Doria.

The peace negotiations, besides Eleonora d'Arborea and John I, were also attended by inhabitants from villas across the island: among them was the representative of the Mole de Posata et Iscle de Galtellì, Pietro Guiso or Quisu di Orosei, who took part on behalf of Nicolao Cuculliu, podestà of the Mola di Posada and governor of La Fava on behalf of the Juighissa, together with the people of Posada and others gathered on 15 January 1388 in the Church of Sant'Antonio Abate. The peace was short-lived, and Eleonora d'Arborea reconquered it in October 1391 by bribing the castellan Gil Ferrandez de Bitxes, who sold La Fava to the Arboreans for 500 lire. From that point on the castle remained in Arborean hands for around twenty years, until the defeat at Sanluri on 30 June 1409, suffered by the new Judge Guglielmo di Narbona.

On 24 March 1410 Leonardo Cubello, Guglielmo's vicar, signed the Capitulation of San Martino, bringing the Giudicato of Arborea to an end. On 25 June 1431 the former curadorìa of Posada was granted as a fief by Alfonso the Magnanimous to Nicolò Carroç d'Arborea y Mur, Viceroy of Sardinia, and transformed into a Barony, made up of the villas of Posada, Lodè, Torpè, Siniscola and the Castello della Fava. The territory was granted to him in perpetuity, free of any obligation of military service, tax or tribute. The feudal lord also held full rights of administration and civil and criminal jurisdiction, provided these were exercised within the boundaries of the Barony.

On the death of Nicolò Carroç in 1479 he was succeeded by his wife, Donna Briand, who named as her heir their daughter Stefania who, dying without heirs, left the Barony to the Hospitals of Barcelona and Zaragoza, which sold it in 1576 to Don Gerolamo Clement. He in turn sold it in 1579 to the Portugues family, who held it until 1642, when they were forced to sell it, to pay off debts, to the Masones family, nobles of Catalan origin. The last feudal lady, from 1830, was Duchess Marianna Nin-Zatrillas. With the Treaty of London of 1718 the Kingdom of Sardinia passed to the Dukes of Savoy, and following Italian unification, the Royal Decree of 15 January 1869, no. 1146, finally freed the people of the Barony from feudal obligations, bringing the history of the Barony of Posada to a close.